FRICTION STIR PROCESSING APPARATUS AND FRICTION STIR PROCESSING METHOD

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a friction stir processing apparatus that can deal with wear of a tool caused by repeated processing operation and that suppresses occurrence of defects to enable satisfactory processing, and to provide a friction stir processing method.SOLUTION: The friction stir apparatus 1 is equipped with an elevation driving means 32 that vertically moves a tool 20 to set a tool height for pressing a workpiece from above. The apparatus 1 is also equipped with a tool height adjusting means 88 for controlling the elevation driving means 32 so that the tool height, when workpieces of the same material are friction-stir-processed successively several times with the same tool 20, uses the tool height set to a workpiece to be machined first as a reference tool height and that, for workpieces to be machined second time and thereafter, the tool height is set lower than the reference tool height by a prescribed lowering width for the purpose of securing a contact area necessary between the shoulder face of the tool 20 and the workpiece, correspondingly to the wear of the tool 20 by the processing operation.